I stopped listening to the Freakonomics podcast when host Stephen Dubner linked A-Rod with DFG and said sports fans love cheaters who cheat to win. As to readers/viewers, I think with the salary cap, the economics of team construction is another variable and makes the NFL more interesting than other sports. In my option, BB has an advantage over other GM’s in that he applies his Economics degree to football.
EconTalk is a much better podcast than Freakonomics. Their comments section is like comparing SOSH to gangrene forums. There have been many sports related topics discussed here is a link. Russ Roberts the host grew up in Lexington and is a Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots fan.
Well, since you bring it up--
I mentioned Freakonomics because Levitt (the economist founder, along with journalist Dubner) is famous for digging up unconventional control groups to make rigorous statements about many topics. The Dubner approach is based on
instrumental variables (pioneered in part by Josh Angrist, also a sometimes sports economist and Red Sox fan). Levitt has tried to find instruments to address questions about things in common life like prostitution and bagel shops that are outside the domain of traditional economics.
Now, Levitt has faced criticism. Some of his findings have not held up (often for non-instrumental reasons like data quality). He's been accused of ruining economics for
focusing on "trivial" topics. Probably the most telling referendum on him within the field is the career path of his favored academic protegee, Emily Oster of economists-are-smarter-than-doctors, wine-is-ok-during-pregnancy fame. Levitt brought her to UChicago as a hotshot young star after she published a few freakonomics-style papers, and she was
denied tenure by Levitt's own department there. The Freakonomics media empire including the podcast is, I agree, pretty weak. I've listened a few times and they don't have enough material to do all the shows they do.
So I probably should have said something like "there's not a lot of microeconomists or fans of Angrist and Krueger here". You're right that Freakonomics is not great.
As for EconTalk, yes, I listen to it too. But keep in mind it has a bias. It's part of the Hoover Institute which has been associated with the GOP for decades and has had a revolving-door relationship with the Reagan and Bush administrations. Hoover is funded mainly by the very wealthy through
sources like the Walton Foundation and Scaife. And EconTalk is hosted by the Library of Economics and Liberty, funded by the Liberty Fund. As with most any policy organization today with "Freedom" or "Liberty" in their name, that means they lean heavily right and are funded by a billionaire. In the case of the
Liberty Fund, the founder was Pierre Goodrich and they still push conservative views today. So Russ Roberts is OK but keep in mind he has a particular policy bent; some of his interviews with climate change skeptics are in particular pretty egregious. Roberts would be the first to claim that
all views have a bias and one should simply admit this at all times. It's hard to dislike Roberts however, when he also sees the
parallels between news and the media and the Patriots and DFG.
As for football and soccer and ratings and predictions, let's see what happens to ratings over the rest of this year. And next.